


Connective Tissue

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9284762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: AU post-Flesh and Bone;  Kara fears she's a cylon and Lee assures her she's not.





	

Kara had been laying in her bunk staring at nothing for forty minutes when Lee finally got off shift and back to the bunkroom.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Her voice was low and morose, and she didn’t stir as Lee pulled off his dress blues. She could feel his eyes on her though.

“How’d the interrogation go?”

She didn’t answer, just stared up at the underside of the bunk above, her mind racing. It barely registered as Lee walked around the table and stood next to her rack, his frame blocking out the fluorescent lighting. “Kara?” She turned her head and his eyebrows lifted, his hands immediately reaching out to touch her face. “What the frak!” He tilted her head and sat down, exposing her neck to the light. “That motherfrakker did this to you?”

She’d forgotten about the finger-shaped bruises the cylon’d left on her throat. If only that’d been the worst of it. She sighed and reached up pushing Lee’s hands away. “I’m fine,” she sat up, as Lee slid closer, his hip pressing against her good knee.

“How the hell did he even get that close to you? Where were the frakking marine guards?” He was almost spitting and Kara struggled not to roll her eyes.

“LEE. I’m fine, alright? It looks worse than it is.” He pulled back, his hands dropping to her shoulders, but his eyes locked on hers, searching. She struggled to keep her gaze neutral, even though the intensity of his stare made her want to look away.

“You are _not_ fine. What happened in there Kara?”

“He lied. There was no bomb. He confessed and Roslin sent him out the airlock.”

“That’s it?” Lee looked at her with suspicion. “Eight hours. You were in there with him for eight hours.”

She shifted uncomfortably, her hand toying with the edge of her knee brace. “They sweat. They bleed. They feel pain like we do.”

Lee slid his hands off her shoulders and down her arms, his fingers twining with hers. “Kara. What aren’t you telling me?”

Her eyes slid shut and she blew out a hard breath. Frak it. She met his eyes. “He knew things, Lee.”

He cocked his head. “Knew things?”

“About me. About my past.” She shook her head, brow furrowing. “Kept spouting all this bullshit about swimming in streams and how only he could see the patterns. But he knew about my mother…what she did.”

His hands squeezed hers. “Kara, there’s gotta be an explanation. He’s been in the fleet for weeks, maybe… I don’t know, maybe he got into your medical records.”

“No. He knew things that… they weren’t in my record, okay?” She gritted her teeth, forcing the words out. “He knew how it made me feel. It was like he was inside my frakking head. Like he tapped into…” She broke off with a curse, biting her lip. “Lee, what if…” her grip tightened on his fingers, almost convulsively, “what if he knew because I’m…like him?” She swallowed hard, a lump in her throat the size of a pyramid ball. Her voice was shaking. “What if I’m a cylon?”

Lee’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped. And then he laughed. The frakker laughed long and hard. “It’s not funny, you jackass.” But the knot that had been sitting in her chest for the last hour loosened and her lips quirked at the corners.

He pulled her forward and wrapped his arms around her. “I think if you’re a frakking cylon, we’re all beyond screwed.” A half-sob, half-laugh broke from her throat and she slipped her arms around Lee’s waist and let her forehead fall to his shoulder.

She took a deep breath as his hand rubbed a slow circle on her back then slid up till his palm cradled the back of her neck. He tugged gently on the ends of her hair and Kara lifted her head. Lee stared into her eyes, serious now. “There is no way in hell that you are a cylon, Kara Thrace. You’re impulsive and insubordinate and rebellious and foolhardy. Your clothes are always a mess, and you’re late to everything, and you smoke like a chimney and drink to excess.”

Irritated, Kara tried to pull away. “Thanks a lot, Lee. Remind me not to let you give my eulogy.”

He just tightened his arms, trapping her. “I wasn’t finished. You’re brave and you’re honest and you’re brilliant, though you try not to let anyone see that. You fly like the gods themselves gave you wings and you’ll do absolutely anything for the people you care about. You fight hard and you love harder. And there’s no frakking way they stamped you off some production line, okay?” Lee’s thumb stroked over the nape of her neck. “You’re not one of them, Kara. You would know. _I_ would know.” 

She blinked hard, eyes stinging now, but kept her gaze fixed on Lee’s, and nodded. A slow smile broke over his face and he pulled her closer. “So what else did this magical cylon know?” Lee dropped his forehead to Kara’s, the warmth of his breath ghosting over her cheek. “Did he know about us?”

Kara smirked. “No.”

“Well he wasn’t all that smart then, was he?” He didn’t give her the chance to answer, just shifted and covered her mouth with his own. Kara curled her fingers into his tanks and leaned back, pulling Lee down to her. She shifted over and he slipped into her bunk, pulling the curtain shut behind them.

Three weeks since the worlds ended and this began. It had just started as a way to feel alive, a way to take something back. But every day she was falling deeper. It wasn’t like it had been with Zak, falling for him had been slow and sweet and easy. This was…intense, dizzying, all-consuming like fire in her veins.

Kara slid her hands under his tanks, pushing them up and off, and following them with her own, so she could feel his skin against hers. Lee grasped her jaw, turning her head so he could lower his mouth to her neck, raining soft kisses against the bruises Leoben left. He made his way down her body, and each kiss was like a validation. The doubts and the fears that had plagued her earlier slipped further and further away, desire overwhelming her now.

They shed their clothes and Lee settled over her carefully, sliding into her, every brush of his skin against hers igniting her senses, making her entire body hum. They kissed until they were breathless and panting, bodies rising and falling together, edging higher and higher until they broke, clinging and spent.

Kara stroked a hand down Lee’s back, fingers tracing the hard wedge of his shoulder blade. She turned her head, burrowing her face into the sweet, sweaty skin of his neck, her lips rasping lightly over his skin. Kara mouthed the words she couldn’t say aloud and flattened her hands on his back, enjoying the solid weight of him blanketing her. She savored these moments _after_ nowin a way that she never had before, and she sometimes wondered why. Maybe, she thought, it was because they were the few unguarded moments left in a life spent on permanent alert.

Mostly, though, she didn’t think about it. She just watched Lee, sated and sleepy, running her fingers over the smooth expanse of his forehead, unwrinkled by the stress and worry that usually manifested there. He stirred at her touch, his lips finding her temple and he mumbled something she didn’t quite catch.

“Wanna run that by me again?”

“I said, maybe I was wrong.” He grunted softly, propping himself up on an elbow. “Maybe you are a cylon.”

Kara raised an eyebrow.

Lee grinned. “You’re kind of insatiable. Lots of stamina.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “Oof. OW! Super-human strength too!” Kara dug her fingers into his sides and started tickling, and Lee grabbed for her, crushing her to his chest and tucking her head under his chin. His laughter rang loud in her ears and Kara smiled.

She was damn sure a machine could never feel like this.


End file.
